Sage ➸ Carl Grimes

1 ➸ wounded

SAGE

My shirt was black. It was fresh and clean and it had a hole on its hem. I slid my fingers through the openings to kill the beating time. I was losing my mind, and my body responded.

Feed me, it pleaded. Give me food and give me water and give me what I need. You're alone, Sage. And even through your aching body telling you what's right for it, you refuse.

The windows to the house were boarded up with wood, leaving the area still and dim. I sat in the corner with my knife placed on the floor beside me, and I would occasionally glance down at it. It wasn't of pleasure or greed or anything between those lines. I would look at my knife and see the damage it had done on my skin.

I took my lower lip between my teeth as I stumbled to my feet. I held out a weak hand to the wall to catch my weight. My legs were numb. White lines invaded the skin and even red ones, too. But my body had no feeling when I would draw blood with my knife.

I tucked my knife into the back pocket of my jeans, regaining my balance. I felt lightheaded; I always did.

I shuffled across the living room, that was completely dark. I had no candles lit or flashlights to help me see, and the house was encased in its own bitter darkness.

I walked over to the window, grabbing the edge of the wood and began tearing it down. My arms were incredibly weak and took me multiple attempts until I tore the wood from the window.

A blinding beam hit my face, and I held my hand up to shield it. My eyes were squinted from the sun, and I hurried to yank the brown drapes over the glass pane to hide it away again.

I blinked a few times and rubbed at my eyes, startled. I had not seen the outside or been anywhere near it in well over two weeks. I stayed hidden in the same still, lonesome house, and seeing the sun was almost foreign.

I tried again, peaking my head through the curtains. The day was cold and grey like my eyes, and the tall, forest trees seemed to have darken as winter was approaching.

Is it winter? I wondered. Feels like it.

The zombies roamed the streets of the neighborhood. They each followed one another in small pools of the dead, and I cringed at the sight. My fingers stroked the warm fabric of the curtains as I gaped out the window, my chapped lips parted. A few of them were bent over on the pavement, blood and intestines stained the zombies' hands as they feasted like kings. I had given them the name biters, because the term zombie felt too unrealistic to be reality.

But it is reality, Sage, I reminded myself. There are zombies and they took over the world. And now you're outnumbered in a sea of death and pain and hardship and loneliness.

I frowned, shaking my head. I rarely often let myself look outside, because there was no scenery to comfort me or hope for my eyes to see. I would pull over the curtains and face reality. It was a brooding reminder of why I was so lost in my mind, without a family or a friend or a love to guide me through life's never-ending mapway to hell.

I pursed my lips and covered the drapes before I could gain the unwanted attention of another biter.

I leaned back against the dirty brown walls and hugged my arms to my body. The house had no air conditioning and I was settled in Atlanta. I shivered, and as I breathed out of my mouth, it blew between my lips as a foggy cloud, soon evaporating into the thin air.

I left a small crevice open to earn me minimal light to see. I walked over the living room and dodged littered food cans on the hardwood floors. I met up with the staircase and craned my neck to see its end, sighing.